Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Another Report from the Global Congress

This Little Leo could say that this
report is coming several days after the Global Congress ended so that
it didn't crowd all the great activity on the blog. But, the truth
is she wanted to explore many of the wonderful things Cape Town has
to offer, including realizing very late in her stay that she could
probably get actual maize meal here – something that is not readily
available in the US – and make herself a delicious meal of nsima.
(We have corn meal, but it's different and doesn't work well for
nsima.) We fed, she's now ready to report on one more important
session from the 3rd Annual Global Congress on IP and the
Public Interest. (Other reports here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. whew!)

Fellow Leo, Caroline Ncube, led a 2+
hour update on IP happenings from around the world. Over 20 people
spoke, and Little Leo was very pleased to see Africa well represented
on the podium. Rather than covering all 20 presentations, we'll look
at the African updates.

North Africa

Riyadh Al Balushi from the Ministry of
Legal Affairs in Oman covered copyright exceptions and limitations in
the Arab world, which included several countries from North Africa.
The North African countries seem to be a hotbed of unique exceptions.
Of the 22 countries in the Arab world, two do not have copyright
laws and those two are both in Africa, Somalia and Mauritania. Of
the remaining African-Arab countries, only Tunisia does not have an
exception allowing the media to reproduce public and political
speeches without the author's permission. Most countries also allow
the media to reproduce articles of political, religious or economic
discussions in full as long the author did not explicitly say that
article could not be copied for those purposes.

Algeria is one of a small number that
allow publicly displayed art to be photographed without limiting
parameters like incidental use. Riyadh pointed out that allow only a
few countries have this exception, everyone takes pictures of public
art anyway. Tunisia and Algeria are the only two countries to have
an actual exception for parody, despite parody's popularity across
the Arab region. Sudan is the only country that allows copying a
photo of a famous person or politician without permission.

Nigeria

Moving to Sub-Saharan Africa, Adebambo
Adewapo, former Director General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission
and currently at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies,
gave an update on user rights in Nigeria. This Little Leo was
fascinated with his updated because she is very used to hearing “user
rights” talked about in the sense of strictly “end users.”
Adebambo however, discussed broadcasters, media houses and other
users who need access to copyrighted material. Nigeria has specific
copyright exceptions outlined in its Copyright Act, similar to fair
dealing in the UK. There's not a lot of case law on this topic,
though. The real debate in current Nigerian copyright law is in the
area of recasting former obligations as rights. The users about
which Adebambo was speaking are arguing that they have a right to
negotiations with the copyright owners for use of material.

Kenya

Agatha Kabugu, librarian at University
of Nairobi, gave a wonderful update on library's role in creating
access to resources. The university library drafted an open access
policy in 2011, which was adopted in December of 2012. The
university Intellectual Property Policy was revised this year to
match the Open Access Policy and the university started a tech and
innovation support center to help researchers access information.

The new Open Access Policy specifies
that publishing in open access journals does not hinder a person's
promotion or tenure prospects. The university has a digital
repository with CC-licensed works where staff members retain their
copyright when they contribute to the repository; contribution is
optional. Since its creation earlier this year, the repository has
seen 3 million searches and 4 million item views. The university is
now reaching out to alumni with the opportunity to add their works to
the repository. The project has been great for the university and
library because it increased the impact and visibility of research at
the university and is facilitating global research collaboration.
There are a few issues still being worked out, such as technical
glitches, but the repository is off to a great start.

Another speaker from Kenya – Little
Leo apologizes for not getting their name – discussed copyright
exceptions and limitations in Kenya. There's a discontinuity within
the Kenyan Constitution of 2010 which grants property rights and
freedom of expression rights but without any sort of link between
them. In general, Kenya has fair dealing, but its not fully defined.
A recent case found a plagiarized university paper to be infringing.
Another case found a book reviewing another book with a cover the
same color as the original book to be a triable issue but didn't
explain what copyright issue was involved.

Uganda

Charles Batambuze of National Book
Trust of Uganda discussed the Ugandan campaign for copyright reform.
Although the Ugandan Copyright Act is fairly new, dating from 2006,
discussion during the drafting of an anti-counterfeiting bill altered
people to some problems with the copyright act. Campaign for reform
started in earnest in 2012. Issues up for debate include the ability
of libraries to format shift or circumvent technical protection
measures, parallel imports, compulsory licensing provisions that
would be logistically enforceable and prohibiting copyright
exceptions and limitations from being overridden by private
contracts. Journals are working to educate people about how
copyright law affects average Ugandans and discussions are happening
with people in government and vice chancellors at the universities.
Charles also announced that the Ugandan Creative Commons licenses
launched this year and rights holders are starting to use the
licenses.

South Africa

Trudi van Wyk of the South African
department of higher education and training discussed the importance
of open educational content in South Africa. The important part when
dealing with open educational content is not rights, but
responsibilities. The South African government has decided to go the
open route and now needs to insure that the materials used are of
proper quality.

Open educational resources are not
about cost-free resources, but about resources that are cost-free to
the end-users. Therefore, creative business models are needed.
Currently, schools in South Africa can choose whether to use the open
resources or the proprietary ones. Open books are about $5,
proprietary are about $25.